How Nvidia’s 3D Vision works with Skyrim, Battlefield 3, and others

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I have a torrid, love-hate history with 3D, as I’ve outlined ’round these parts more than once in the past. The short version is: I don’t necessarily mind it, but most of the time it costs too much and doesn’t deliver the captivating thrills that would make it worth the trouble and expense. But with any long-term relationship sometimes you need to take a few minutes to reassess where you are, where you’re going, and what you want. So I decided to take the plunge recently and see whether my opinions had changed about 3D, and if so, to what degree.

The way to do this was obvious for me: stereoscopic 3D gaming. I’ve spent time with 3D HDTVs and even the Nintendo 3DS. As you probably know by now, I’m primarily a PC guy, and as a result I’m most familiar with Nvidia’s 3D Vision. I’d first been briefed on and sampled the technology — which requires an Nvidia video card (naturally), the 3D Vision active-shutter glasses, an emitter (either as a standalone unit or integrated into the display), and a 120Hz monitor — when it was released in early 2009, and I’ve watched how it and the software support for it has evolved ever since. Because I’d also gotten Nvidia’s most recent revision of the hardware (daringly called 3D Vision 2) and the Asus VG278H monitor with a built-in emitter, this struck me as an excellent way to knock out three birds with one stone.

For now I’m going to skip over the nuances of the system configuration process, primarily because they’re boring. But this is one of those cases where that’s a good thing. Things are especially easy with a 3D Vision-ready monitor: you just plug in the display, and don’t even have to worry about installing drivers. (In the past, I’ve found that working with the standalone emitter can occasionally be finicky and counter-intuitive.) So after hooking up the display and running the simple 3D Vision setup program from the Nvidia control panel, I was ready to go.

Now I needed to choose the games. Because holiday season is upon us, recent titles seemed the best choice, and a wide span of genres would be the most instructive. As it happens, the oldest game I used was L.A. Noire, which came out this summer. The others were all released for PC in the last five weeks: Battlefield 3, the popular military-themed FPS; The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for the fantasy-fighting angle; and the high-flying Batman: Arkham City, which I’ve been playing pretty regularly the last couple of weeks (though I remain bearish about its draconian DRM). If these didn’t provide a sweeping look of stereoscopic 3D gaming as we barrel into 2012, nothing could.

Finally, I threw together a system I was sure wouldn’t have any trouble showing off all that these games could do. I used a top-of-the-line Intel Core i7-3960X Sandy Bridge-E processor, 8GB of RAM, and Nvidia’s flagship dual-GPU GTX 590 video card, then downloaded all four titles and set them to run at 1920×1080 resolution with maximum detail settings (anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, you name it) so I’d be testing performance, too.

I want to know if it will *work* with passive 3d. I can’t stand the flicker of shutterspecs. I have a Vizio E3D470VX, and love being able to see 120Hz in both eyes simultaneously. Yes, the resolution’s “interlaced”, but your brain puts the halves together really well.

“Given how good this game looks under ordinary
circumstances, there was no reason to expect it would look bad — or even
unsatisfactory” – One giant LOL. Skyrim is a console port with graphics 6 years out of date. Even on max detail it looks pretty ugly. I guess someone needs their eyes testing.

Brandon Boswell

you need your brain checked

Anonymous

You’re an absolute idiot. Bethesda created the new “Creation Engine” to as it’s graphics engine. This is nowhere near 6 years out of date. You are most likely playing on a shitty computer, and have no idea what to expect from games. Furthermore, there are so many HD texture packs that you can transform the game into an entirely mint experience. Obviously Bethesda is not going to make their game run on ultra as their default low setting, as they would have a too low target audience for the game. A game has to be accessible to a wide audience to make money.

Was interesting to read. Im waiting for new GPU from Nvidia in April, then I’m buying expensive 3D Vision setup for home. Cant wait to try Skyrim in 3D

How_delightful

Reminds me. Time to try Skyrim in 3D.

Although, after going Ultra on Batman AA in 3D, I think I must get an extra GTX 780 to SLi to destroy some fps lags I noticed on occasion here & there, and for use in every and any game in 3D; and to power anything due out. Like the Redux HD re-vamped more refined and improved versions of METRO that are out real soon. Pre-ordered on Steam.

Tara Tompson

Wow, that’s so cool! I didn’t know that you could even have 3D games! I bet my kids would love to try that! I’ll have to see if they want it as a birthday present!